Note 83 — Chapter II

Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. xi. p. 67) supposes that it will support three times as many; but the statistics of this great writer are the weakest part of his work, and the more careful calculations made since he wrote bear out the statement in the text. ‘It admits of demonstration that an acre of potatoes will feed double the number of people that can be fed from an acre of wheat.’ Loudon's Encyclop. of Agriculture, 5th edit. 1844, p. 845. So, too, in M'Culloch's Dict. p. 1048, ‘an acre of potatoes will feed double the number of individuals that can be fed from an acre of wheat.’ The daily average consumption of an able-bodied labourer in Ireland is estimated at nine and a half pounds of potatoes for men, and seven and a half for women. See Phillips on Scrofula, 1846, p. 177.